The present invention relates to the connection of wearing elements to machinery. It is particularly directed to the connection of ground engaging tools such as teeth to excavator buckets, but may have wider application.
Excavating equipment is subject to significant abrasive wear during use. For this reason, replaceable ground engaging tools (GET) are located about the bucket in the areas most susceptible to wear. A number of different GET are used, including heel shrouds, adaptors, wear plates and, importantly, teeth.
The connection of teeth to adaptors has presented a consistent challenge, and there are many different systems currently available which seek to perform this task in an efficient manner. Many of the systems use a locking pin, which passes through a bore of the adaptor. Such an arrangement has an inherent problem in that the provision of a bore weakens the adaptor, as well as encouraging stress concentrations within the adaptor.
Other systems use a latching system. These are problematic in that there is usually no ability to adjust or tighten the connection, hence the teeth are liable to become loose.
One such latching system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,640,685 (Emrich). Emrich uses a square sectioned, non-resilient pin within a square sectioned, resiliently deformable bore. The pin can be rotated in 90° increments, partially deforming the bore and then ‘snapping’ to the next position. In this way the latching system can be engaged or disengaged.
The present invention seeks to provide an arrangement for connection of wearing elements, particularly teeth, which addresses some of these problems.